


Chef's (Uns)Table

by TheAlchemistsDaughter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Chef AU, F/M, Gift Fic, Swearing, art prompt, restaurant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlchemistsDaughter/pseuds/TheAlchemistsDaughter
Summary: Kylo Ren is a high-powered chef with an explosive temper. Nevertheless, Rey likes him. To get him to come out of the kitchen, she and her friends try to wind him up. When someone asks for ketchup, it works a little too well.





	Chef's (Uns)Table

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BazineApologist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BazineApologist/gifts).



> This is a fic based on this art by BazineApologist
>
>> Rey asked the waiter for some ketchup. Starkiller’s Michelin star chef/culinary badboy Kylo Ren was not amused. [pic.twitter.com/txx76L90mh](https://t.co/txx76L90mh)
>> 
>> — Aisling, Bazine, Gozetta, & Madoc Apologist (@bazineapologist) [April 24, 2019](https://twitter.com/bazineapologist/status/1121043542392971264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Rey has had a lot of jobs in her time. Like… A lot. She’s been working pretty steadily since she was fourteen and hasn’t held a single job for longer than five months, so it all adds up. She’d done everything too. She couldn’t afford to be picky.

That’s how she ended up trained in silver service. Long story.

It makes getting catering jobs easy, and that is how she meets Finn, who looks dapper in a crisp white shirt, black waistcoat, pants, and bowtie. He is also trained in silver service and they do weddings and corporate events together.

Finn is how she meets Poe, the best sommelier in the city. And he is how she gets hired at Starkiller, where she meets Kylo Ren (AKA Ben Solo, he’s just being pretentious, something he learned in fancy French cooking school).

Rey also looks dapper in a crisp white shirt, a black waistcoat and pants, but they don’t make her wear a bowtie. She works there for three months, and she actually kind of likes it. The clientele are so stuck up they never give her any trouble. If they have a problem, it goes above her paygrade, so she never has to apologise or bow and scrape like she’s had to at previous waitressing jobs. Poe is great, knowledgeable but still fun and down to earth, and he’s as happy to do shots with her in a dive bar as he is to let her finish off the wine that costs hundreds of dollars when there’s some left over.

Her favourite thing about Starkiller, though, is easily her boss. It’s a novel experience for her. He’s the same frantic, manic, neurotic, suffering artist delicate snowflake held at a boil that she’s used to when it comes to chefs, especially chefs that own the restaurant. He’s a complete megalomaniac, control freak, narcissist with a fetishistic obsession with food, and he really needs to just chill out, but watching Kylo fly off the handle is always the highlight of the night. He’s worse than Gordon Ramsay.

Rey doesn’t usually like angry men. Growing up in foster care, raised voices always made her panic. But Kylo is just so weird about the things that set him off. He doesn’t get angry about normal things, things going wrong with deliveries or complaints, if he thinks they’re justified at least. No, he gets angry about food. He gets angry about sauce being left on the burner too long, or served on the wrong plate, or the garnish being set on the meat rather than on the side, or the other way around.

And then he will go _apoplectic_. Totally nuclear.

He’s a big man, which should make it worse, but it doesn’t. Once he threw his hands up in a fury and dislodged a huge metal pan from the ceiling hook, and it landed on the handle of the frying pan beneath it, neatly flipping quails’ eggs into three separate dishes on the adjacent stove. The crash had been deafening. His responding fit had knocked the magnetic knife block cannonballing into the soup. It had been _amazing_. Rey had laughed so hard she’d cried, hard enough to distract him from the disaster, and when she’d looked up, his mouth had smiled even though the rest of him was still frowning, hands on his hips and eyes confused.

“You think that’s funny, do you?” he’d groused at her.

“No, chef,” she’d said, wiping her eyes and beaming before slipping out onto the restaurant floor where he couldn’t get her.

They have another little moment when she just happens to be in the kitchen when Kylo spills boiling water on himself and whips his wet shirt off before it scalds him, leaving him in only the black vest he has on underneath. His body is as white as his face, but he is surprisingly toned. Rey supposes he is on his feet all day and he does do all his chopping and beating by hand. He doesn’t miss a beat and returns immediately to what he was doing, but when he catches her looking he does a double-take. He runs his eyes over her for a moment, and she smiles at him. He looks away again, and now he is a little pink in the cheeks where he wasn’t before.

Nevertheless, she quits after three months and doesn’t work out her notice. She tells everyone it’s just time to move on. Only Poe knows it’s because Hux, the maitre d’, suspects that her work visa might not be totally kosher, because he was the one who warned her. So she quits before she is fired; before she is, in fact, deported.

She still lives with Finn, so she still sees Poe, who doesn’t say anything. And she doesn’t say anything about Kylo kind of sort of asking her out three weeks ago, and how she had kind of sort of, with regrets, said no because he was her boss. When she tells him she’s quitting, she can see he’s angry, his jaw working and eye-twitching, but he is sad too, and nervous.

“I hope you weren’t uncomfortable here,” he says, looking at the kitchen floor even as he puts his boss voice on.

“No, I loved it here, I just… I have to go,” she tells him. She hopes he will take the hint, that L-word, and ask her out again, but he doesn’t.

It’s a shame, but to avoid ICE, she changes her phone number and stops responding to emails.

She still hears about him though, from Poe, when he visits. He has her crying with laughter all over again as he tells her about Kylo, and the names he called the author of a particular review this week, and she misses him.

Every couple of months, Starkiller changes their menu, and closes to allow for a private tasting dinner. It is very exclusive, only people that Kylo wants there are on the list, but Poe adds Rey and Finn and nobody notices.

Rey dresses nice. It’s a fancy restaurant so she would have to anyway but this is special. She will be seeing Kylo again, and she has hopes for the evening.

Part of what makes Kylo’s rages so entertaining is that they are completely unpredictable. She doesn’t mean to set him off by asking for sparkling water with her meal instead of any of Poe’s recommended wines. She hears him hit the ceiling from the restaurant floor though.

“SPARKLING WATER? THEY MIGHT AS WELL ASK FOR COKE! THIS IS NOT MACDONALDS. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING WENDY’S. DO THEY THINK WE HAVE A FUCKING SODA FOUNTAIN IN HERE? ‘LET ME GET MY PAPER CUP!’ WHO ARE THEY? I’LL-”

He pushes through the swing doors to the kitchen, in his black and red scrubs as usual (pretentious), then sees her and freezes. The anger washes from his face like it was never there, even if his mouth is still held open in a yell. She gives him a polite smile, shy as his eyes map her bare shoulders, her collarbones. Then his eyes flick to Finn sitting across the table from her and his jaw snaps shut. He stiffens. Then he turns on his heel and goes back to the kitchen.

Oh.

Rey’s face falls.

She had expected _something_. Even if a smile was too much for him, he could have come over and made small talk for a few seconds. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks.

She looks at the table, and swallows, and it’s probably at that moment that Finn and Poe realise how she feels about it, and make a pact, quietly and telepathically between themselves, to throw her into Kylo’s path as much as possible.

She attends every tasting dinner after that. Kylo tries to stop her, or she assumes he does, because from then on she attends as the plus-one of another of their friends, a different one every time, never a name Kylo will recognise.

Starkiller is so prestigious, so fancy and upmarket and expensive, that Rey could never afford to eat there. She doesn’t own any clothes even close to what the other women there wear, no jewels. She doesn’t do her make-up or hair the same way, her only high heels are simple sandals. She couldn’t even go for a visit because Hux never liked her and wouldn’t let her past the front door if she tried.

So she sneaks into these private dinners for which the rules are bent a little. It’s about food, and flavour, not clothes or money. The meals are free, as long as she eats what she is given and gives an honest opinion to her waiter.

That is another reason why she, perhaps, gets on better with Kylo than anyone else, and doesn’t mind his rages. Food is sacred to them both. She doesn’t care as much about palettes and flavours and the art of it all. It doesn’t have to be high-class for her, Lord knows she’s just as happy with a burger, but things like waste they can agree on. It soothes a part of her to see a man who appears to have everything, money, education, standing, everything she lacks, absolutely lose his rag over the loss of a tainted dish that can no longer be served. Most people shrug and throw it out. Kylo understands the significance every item of food can have, how even the smallest thing should be respected. It makes her feel understood, like they have something in common, even if she has never told him, or indeed anyone, about that side of herself and where it comes from.

But he never comes out to see her. Sometimes she thinks he is too busy and genuinely does not know she is there. Sometimes she is certain he does know, and is avoiding her.

It frustrates Poe, she can see that. It makes him feel bad for her. So, without her really having any say in it, something almost like a game starts up. Suggestions are made and discussed of how to draw Kylo out, the thing that will make him flip out so hard he _has_ to come out and confront them about it.

Kaydel suggests lemon juice on steak.

The following dinner, Snap nervously tries asking for his sauce on the side.

Jess demands the waiter ask if the courgette is vegetarian. That one gets a lot of loud clanging from the kitchen, but never does Kylo yell, or come back out of the kitchen.

Until Rose, bless her, innocently asks for ketchup.

She doesn’t mean it as part of the game, she genuinely wants it, but still Rey says “Oh no, don’t, he hates that.”

She has been growing tired of the game, to be honest. It doesn’t exactly make her feel good, every time Kylo would rather put a lid on a volcanic meltdown than see her again. It has been months now. She should just take the hint, but her friends won’t let her give up.

Poe cackles evilly beside their table, well aware that this could push Kylo further than anything they’ve tried so far, and nods at poor Mitaka to go to the kitchen and carry out Rose’s request.

Rey’s insides squirm as they wait. It’s really not fair of them to torment Kylo like this just because he’s passionate about something… Still, he won’t respond and then it will be over and this will be the last time, she’s decided. She won’t do this again.

“OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” The door to the kitchen slams open, and Rey jumps. There is Kylo, looking as mad as she’s ever seen him, eyes on fire, hunched, his hair falling in his face (he always kept it at a length that wouldn’t tie back, very unhygienic for a kitchen). His eyes are on her immediately, as if he knew just where to find her.

He barrels towards her, weaving between the tables as if no one else was there. Something small in Rey goes _oh no_. Then he is there, at her table. He slams his hands down on the top, sending plates and glasses and cutlery flying as two of the legs leave the floor. Poe flinches. Rose stares in shock. Rey is quiet, and ashamed. She can barely look at him.

_“You think this is funny do you? Torturing me like this?”_ he hisses. Rey cannot bear the weight of his glare, his anger. “ _Ketchup?_ KETCHUP?? You can bully me all you like, but HOW DARE YOU disrespect my food? In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a slightly more mature cuisine that what you’re used to, I expect-”

“Woah, hang on,” says Poe.

“THIS ISN’T BURGERS AND FRIES,” Kylo bellows with disdain, nevertheless staying an arm’s length away from her. “THIS IS MY LIFE’S WORK. I’VE PUT EVERYTHING I HAVE INTO THIS RESTAURANT. YOU DON’T GET TO COME IN HERE AND TREAT IT LIKE A FUCKING- LIKE IT’S SO UNPALATABLE THAT YOU NEED THAT CHEMICAL SUCROSE SLOP TO FORCE IT DOWN. I AM A GOOD COOK! YOU MAY NOT LIKE ME, BUT I AM A GOOD COOK!”

“Kylo, buddy…” Poe tries again.

“Maybe you get off on ridiculing me, maybe the idea of us _ever_ \- maybe I overstepped when I- Maybe knowing I have feelings for you makes this worth your time somehow-” He is not quiet, but he is not at full volume either, the only indication that he is actually hurt. “BUT THEY WERE CLEARLY MISPLACED AND I CAN ASSURE YOU THEY HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY SLAUGHTERED NOW. I NEVER THOUGHT YOU CAPABLE OF THIS BUT I WAS WRONG. KETCHUP?? YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT KETCHUP! YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT THE WOMAN I THOUGHT YOU WERE. YOU- YOU-”

“Solo, don’t, this isn’t-”

“YOU ARE JUST AN UNCULTURED, UNEDUCATED, TALENTLESS-”

“Ben!”

“Mr Ren, it wasn’t Rey-”

“-NOBODY! YOU’RE NOTHING COMPARED TO ME! YOU THINK YOU COULD EVER MAKE IT IN THIS WORLD? YOU’RE LAZY! YOU’RE FECKLESS, FLAKEY, YOU’LL NEVER BE ANYTHING, TO ANYBODY!”

Maybe he has more to say, but Poe throws a punch across the table. It doesn’t land well, glancing off Kylo’s cheek, but it startles him enough to shut him up. He touches his cheek and looks at Poe.

“Shut the fuck up!” Poe yells, nothing like how Kylo can yell. “Rose ordered the damn ketchup!”

Kylo looks at Rose, apparently noticing her for the first time. She is pink and fidgety and humiliated. “Rey told me not to,” she says, unable to hold Kylo’s eyes, though she tries.

Kylo turns back to Rey then, his hand still on his cheek. Maybe he is expecting her to confirm or deny this. He looks confused, frowning, but there is something in his eyes like panic.

All that happens is the tears in Rey’s eyes spill over, cutting a line down one side of her face, then the other. She is white like marble, and still. She is horrified, mortified, heart-broken, and yet… She believes him. His words sink deep into her because the tracks have already been laid. She _is_ nobody, nothing. She _is_ uneducated and uncultured. She _does_ like burgers and fries and ketchup. To her, food is important because she has been so hungry. Kylo can make it beautiful, but she can’t. She _won’t_ ever have a career to be proud of, she won’t ever be able to stick around, build a life, make friends, have somebody. Not really. Not for life. Not before she has to move on again. He is right about that.

And of course he wouldn’t really like her, not the real her.

She moves her napkin from her thighs to beside her plate and gets shakily to her feet. She is not looking at Kylo. She can’t lift her head. She says in the direction of Rose, “I’m gonna go.” In the direction of Poe, “Thanks.”

Her chair isn’t pushed back far enough. She has to squeeze past Kylo. His body turns to follow her but he doesn’t step back. She unhooks her bag from the chair, gathers her coat into her arms without taking the time to put it on.

“Rey, wait,” Rose says, and somewhere under there Kylo says the same thing but much, much quieter.

“You son of a bitch,” snarls Poe. “You fucking asshole.”

Rey walks to the door and leaves. Nobody stops her. Rose trots behind her after hurriedly scraping her things together. They make it a few doors down before Rose puts her hand on Rey’s arm, wanting to see her face, and Rey turns into her hug and sobs.

She is pretty much miserable after that. She struggles because, while she believes he was right to yell at her – they _had_ been messing with him, and she knew he liked her – still, having her crush yell that she’s nothing in front of a crowd including two of her closest friends… That shit hurts more than average. That’s more than most people have to deal with when life slaps them with a dose of heartache.

Finn is livid when he finds out, but Rey barely responds to his anger. It doesn’t even register after Kylo’s. Poe kneels next to where she sits on the sofa and alternates between cursing Kylo out and vowing to avenge her, and begging her forgiveness. Rose walks on eggshells and asks Rey if she’s okay every couple of hours. Rey just sighs and says she’ll get over it. She feels too cruel to really engage with their sympathy. She doesn’t deserve everything Kylo threw at her, but she deserves to feel bad.

Two days come and go, and then Kylo is in her doorway, looking hang-dog and uncomfortable. He is not dressed for work and it throws Rey for a minute. She stares at his T-shirt and jeans as if they are a costume, the same way she would stare if someone who was not a chef turned up in Kylo’s scrubs. She finds herself uncomfortably hungry for the sight.

It is the middle of the afternoon, before Starkiller opens. Finn is at work. She- They are alone.

She doesn’t say anything, not even hello, she just stares at him.

He clears his throat, his eyes darting around as if looking at her by mapping the empty space around her. He looks different. His hair is not sweaty like it normally is, his complexion is even instead of steamed pink by the kitchen heat. It makes her realise his lips are really just that flush.

“Can I come in?” he says, his voice low, which is also strange and new.

“Are you here to sue me or something?”

He flinches. “No.”

“Did you report me to ICE and you’re here to tell me to get out of town?”

He frowns and lifts his eyes to hers for the first time. “ICE?”

“Yeah, you know, Immigration?”

“Why would I report you to them?”

“Because my work visa wasn’t valid?”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. Why did you think I quit?”

He drops his eyes again and a blush crawls across his cheekbones. “Because I asked you out.”

“Oh. No, it wasn’t that. Poe told me Hux had contacted ICE, I had to leave.”

“What? That fucking asshole, he is _so fired_!” Kylo is getting loud again and it makes Rey smile, just a little bit. She stands back from the door and Kylo edges past, dwarfing her for a second.

Rey closes the door behind him then goes to sit on the arm of the sofa in front of him, while he stands awkwardly between it and the door. “So what are you doing here?”

“I… I came to apologise for… blowing up at you like that and the things I said. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Yes, you did. You wouldn’t have been able to come up with it if you hadn’t thought it at some point.”

“That’s not true! I’ve never thought that about you!”

“It’s okay, it was mostly true.”

“Rey! None of it was true!” He steps forward, his hands out like he means to touch her, but he stops himself. “It’s not true,” he says again.

Rey lets out a deep breath. “It is. I _am_ uncultured, and uneducated, and talentless. I _do_ like burgers and fries and I _will_ eat anything. There isn’t anything special about me. I _am_ … nobody.” She shrugs, tries for a resigned smile. Not everyone can be special and she’s okay with being just one of the crowd.  

He looks appalled, as if he is witnessing a tragedy, a life slipping out of his hands. “Don’t say that!” he says, his voice rough. “Don’t tell me I made you believe that! You _are_ special. You’re _not_ nobody, not to me.”

“Kylo, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay! I’m… an asshole!”

“No, you’re not. You were right, we were messing with you and we shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry I let it go so far.”

He stares at her, his hands in fists at his side. “Why did you do it?”

“We just wanted you to come out of the kitchen.”

“Why?”

“Because…” She sighs. “Because the guys knew I wanted to see you again.”

“What? Why? Why didn’t you just come to the kitchen?”

“Your attention is always on cooking in the kitchen, I didn’t want to disturb you. We wouldn’t have been able to really talk.”

“I would have- You wouldn’t have been disturbing me. I would have talked to you.”

“No, come on, Kylo, you know what you’re like. You hate distractions when you’re working.”

“You’re not a distraction. I mean, you are, but I don’t hate you. I wouldn’t have, if you had come to see me. I would have talked to you.”

Rey looks at him, trying to figure him out. What’s really going on here? Did he just want forgiveness? He could have it. If he wanted more than that, Rey didn’t know if she could give it after what he’d said to her.

“Sit down, Kylo,” she says, taking a seat herself. They only have the one couch, so he has to pick his way over her legs in the gap between them and the coffee table before sitting beside her. “Why are you here?”

He pushes his hand through his hair, exposing for a second his beautiful profile. His hair looks soft between his fingers. “Poe won’t talk to me. He keeps leaving bottles of anti-freeze where he knows I’ll see them. I can’t decide if he wants me to think he’s poisoning me, or if he actually is and is just that sloppy about it.”

“I’ll talk to him, tell him you apologised.”

He takes his hand out of his hair and it falls back over his forehead. “It’s not about Poe. I just… I really am sorry. I was horrible.”

Rey doesn’t say anything. It’s not like she can deny it, he was pretty horrible.

“I just don’t want you to hate me,” Kylo whispers.

“I don’t hate you.”

“But you don’t like me either.”

“Well, what kind of ‘like’ are we talking here?”

He looks at her from the corner of his eye, like he’s afraid to hope. “You don’t want to go out with me.”

Rey pulls her knees up, hugging them to her chest, but she’s smiling a little because she almost finds this funny, the idea that they could start dating after the scene he caused. “Would you?”

“No. But I thought, at the restaurant…”

“At the restaurant, sure, when I was working there. I meant it when I said I couldn’t because you were my boss. I was hoping you’d ask me again when I quit. But Kylo, come on… You told me I’m nothing compared to you because you thought I’d asked for ketchup. How could I date a guy like that?”

He winces. “I said I didn’t mean it.”

“It still hurt. How much worse would you be if you had some real ammo? Relationships are hard. You could really hurt me.”

“The restaurant just makes me crazy. I never get angry like that about anything else, I swear. I’ve never yelled at anyone I’m close to like that. As long as we don’t work together, I won’t yell, I promise.”

Rey thinks about it. She had liked him, and he is pretty hot, and she had wanted to see him again. If he’s right that he wouldn’t ever yell at her like that again, then maybe… But surely she would be an idiot to just take his word for it?

“Okay-”

“ _Okay? Yes?_ ” He spins on her, shocked, and she holds up her hands to stall him.

“Okay, _what if_ … we date, but we don’t eat together? Nothing, not even coffee, and you’re not allowed to talk about food either.”

He blinks. “What, ever?”

“Not ever, no, but… let’s say a month. We can go out, go to the park, go to the cinema, the aquarium, whatever. But no ice cream, no popcorn, nothing. If you really only get mad about food then, okay, we can see where it goes.”

He looks at her like she’s demanding he cut his tongue out, and he’s considering it. “But food is all I’m good at, it’s all I know, it’s my only selling point.”

Rey laughs. “No, it’s not, come on. Do we have a deal?” She holds her hand out for him to shake.

He considers it, uncertain. “Okay but… You have to let me cook for you _once_ before you dump me. Just once.”

“Fine.”

He takes her hand, his much larger one warm and tight over hers. “And I want a kiss.”

“I think I can arrange that,” she laughs. “Oh, but I’m not calling you Kylo. If we’re not at the restaurant, it’s Ben.”

His expression flattens but he doesn’t let go of her hand. “I guess I can live with that.”

“Good,” she grins, taking her hand back.

He is still watching her. “So when are you free? You know my hours, basically.”

“Sunday afternoon? We can go to the park. Something tells me you need to spend some time in nature,” she laughs.

“Okay, Sunday.” Somehow, after their handshake, his hand has not returned to his side of the couch but instead is resting just above her knee. It moves down her thigh, and he is still looking at her, his eyes getting a little clouded. “Rey, can I kiss you?”

She shouldn’t, not before they even have one date, not when less than an hour ago her heart was still broken because of him. But she doesn’t want to tell him no, so she hums and offers him her cheek, tapping it with a fingertip, teasing him.

He’ll take what he can get, evidently. He leans forward, covering her body, caging her legs between them. She feels rolled into a ball but warm as he slowly presses his lips to her cheek and her breath stutters, her smile becoming brittle. His mouth is hot, too big to be neat, just the tiniest bit wet. The hand that had tapped her cheek is now around his neck, fingers nesting in his hair, holding him there when he would pull away. She lets her eyes slide to look at him, and he is so close, his eyes bright and burning.

_What am I doing? Oh, what am I doing?_ But she is doing it. They stare at each other as she turns her face, navigating her nose to the other side of his, and presses her lips to his for a real kiss.

It’s better. It’s better, somehow, than she expected, yet just as good as she imagined.

 

 

 


End file.
